Halloween Hop

For Halloween this year, I had a bunch of readings that fell into the theme – Bloodline and Vampyre from my Dracula hangover and the 24-hour read-a-thon; and Perfume, left over from my derailed book discussion back in September that finally pushed through on Halloween weekend.

In this post are reviews of these three chillingly good reads (books #156-158 for 2009), as well as a recap of the latest Flips Flipping Pages book discussion.

I read Bloodline and Vampyre during the 24-hour readathon, because I really enjoyed reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula and wanted to try out books based on the classic.

Bloodline by Kate Cary is a young adult novel set one generation after the original Dracula, around World War I. Mary Seward is a volunteer nurse at a hospital when she is drawn to one particular patient, Lt. John Shaw, an injured (and apparently disturbed) soldier from the trenches.

Mary spots Lt. Shaw’s journal by his bed and reads about the horrifying experiences involving his regiment’s strange and seemingly superhuman commander, Quincey Harker. Mary nurses John back to health, just as Harker comes to town and woos John’s sister Lily, who elopes with Harker to Transylvania.

John and Mary find out that Harker carries Dracula’s bloodline, and they flee to Transylvania to save Lily and stanch the bloodline once and for all.

I bought this book on a whim at a bargain bin in last year’s book fair and never thought I would like it, as I was a bit wary of teen vampire novels after a certain *cough cough* sparkling vampire. A few months before that I’d unearthed an advanced reading copy of the sequel to this book, The Reckoning in a Book Sale bargain bin and put it up for mooching, never thinking I would get  a copy of the first book and would get around to reading it. Now that I’ve read Bloodline, I sorely regret giving away that ARC. Argh!

Bloodline rehashes the popular notion that Quincey Harker is actually Dracula’s child. Mary Seward is the daughter of John Seward (still alive) and is the Mina Harker of this Dracula Story, while John Shaw is Jonathan Harker and Lily Shaw serves as Lucy Westenra.

I liked Bloodline because it captures the tone and feel of the original Dracula quite well, and draws on Dracula’s epistolary style to create parallels in the original plot in a second generation of characters.  On the whole I found the book well-written and a satisfying read, for a reinterpretation of a book I enjoyed immensely.

There is a twist at the end that throws the plot off-kilter, although it does shift the balance and set up events for the sequel. I expect Reckoning will showcase Carey’s writing more, as the first book pretty much covered the parallel plot. I hear Van Helsing will make an appearance in the second book, though, so Cary won’t be completely on her own… and it makes me want to get my hands on a copy of Reckoning so I can find out what happens next!

The second book in this review series is Vampyre: The Terrifying Lost Journal of Dr. Cornelius Van Helsing by Cornelius Van Helsing and Gustav de Wolff.

I found this book at the Book Sale warehouse last December, and it was a bit pricey, but it was around a third of what these types of lavishly interactive books usually cost at bookstores so I couldn’t resist (along with a copy of Pirateology!)

The book is the journal of Abraham Van Helsing’s brother Cornelius, who accidentally becomes a vampire hunter himself when his brother falls ill. Cornelius is convinced that the evil that his brother’s gang had vanquished in the past has returned with a vengeance, so together with his manservant, he sets off to Transylvania to seek a cure.

The journal chronicles their travels, notes on vampire lore, letters and clippings from home, as well as Gustav’s side comments, spread throughout the book in fold-outs, pull tabs, detachable letters, rub-activated panels, and a lot of other mechanisms that are a pleasure to explore.

Here are some pages from the book:

The last book in this Halloween series is Perfume: The Story of A Murderer by Patrick Suskind.

I discovered this book while reading, of all things, A Girl’s Guide to High Heels by Camilla Morton, mentioned under the heading Perfume, phase one in the section “Getting Dressed in Under 5 minutes). I packed the book along while covering an interisland adventure race last October and it made a great Halloween read (while I missed my book club’s Halloween book discussion).

Anyway, since I moderated the book discussion, I don’t want to talk about it in depth anymore (this post is getting too long!), so here’s a brief summary if you haven’t heard about the book yet: Grenouille, a social outcast with a highly developed sense of smell, gets a whiff of a virgin girl and becomes obsessed with capturing this scent (ergo murdering a couple dozen beautiful virgin girls) to create a perfume like no other.

It’s beautifully written and highly compelling, and I count it as one of the best books I’ve ever read.

We had a great discussion at Van Gogh is Bipolar (which finally pushed through, despite the threat of the storm Santi), sprawled out on a cushy mattress in a room lit up with candles and an endless supply of tea and nibblies! We even had a Sniff-off, where teams had to identify various sundry substances blindfolded!

More on the discussion here, although you’ll have to forgive our identity-theft nonsense towards the end, I think we all wore out our cogs with analysis :D

Here’s the Perfume souvenir bookmark if you want to print your own (Eep, Flippers, I have yours — I forgot to distribute at the discussion, so half the people didn’t get one, sorree! Will bring them this month!) :)

***

My copies: Bloodline, trade paperback; Vampyre, hardcover; Perfume, 4 different editions (3 trade paperback, 1 mass market paperback)

My ratings: Bloodline 3.5/5 stars; Vampyre 5/5 stars; Perfume 5/5 stars